My company offers a program called “The DreamCatcher,” in which I have money deducted from my paycheck for three years and at the end of that time, they match the amount saved and give me two additional weeks of vacation to take my trip. I know, that’s a pretty sweet deal. Some folks have taken vacations to far-flung exotic locations around the globe, but when you’re vacationing with a family of four, you need to tone down those travel plans a bit.
My family and I discussed many adventures and even gave much consideration to the idea of going to a Dude Ranch. After much debating, we realized that what we really loved to do as a family was to go on camping trips. So why not see more of America, and get a chance to roast marshmallows. We went to an RV show and put our DreamCatcher money towards a new tent trailer and then planned out our trip.
We narrowed it down to 4 national parks that we really wanted to see. Zion, Bryce Canyon, Grand Teton and Yellowstone. There are so many great parks to see, but we figured on spending 3 nights in each park, so we’d quickly run out of time if we chose to see more.
After a quick overnight in Las Vegas to break up the drive, our first park was Zion National Park in Utah. Zion is a really remarkable park where you spend your time down in this beautiful red rock valley looking up at huge cliffs carved over the centuries by the Virgin River. It was pretty cool to point out exposed layers of rock to my kids that was being formed at the time dinosaurs roamed the earth. The temperature was around 102 each day, so one of the highlights of this part of the trip was going tubing down the river to escape the heat.
Our next stop was Bryce Canyon National Park (still in Utah). Bryce is very different than Zion because you’re standing on top of the cliffs looking down at the wonderful features of the park, known as hoodoos. The hoodoos were formed by wind, water and ice erosion. There are some really great hiking trails here. I loved it. We also saw a great many dear and pronghorn. (Pronghorn look a little like dear or antelope and are the fastest mamals in North America).
We spent a night in Salt Lake City to get a clean shower and break up the drive again before heading into Grand Teton National Park in Wyoming. Wow, this place is big! When we entered the main gate, they told us it was another 40 minute drive to our camp site. The Teton Range is unbelieveably gorgeous and the wide open flowering planes were a perfect accompanyment. We saw dear, elk and bison, but unfortunately no moose. We also saw far too many mosquitos here.
Our final park was the grandaddy of all national Parks, Yellowstone. Yellowstone is the most seismicaly active place on the earth. In fact half of the worlds geothermal features are located here. The whole park is essentially an active volcano. Geysers, steam vents and paint pots seemed to be everywhere. Driving around or hiking in the morning is really special because the steam makes it look like the world’s on fire. We had some very close encounters with the bison and did manage to see one grizzly bear, but again no moose.
Hi highly recommend seeing all of these parks, but if you can’t make it out there, maybe my video will give you a glimpse of how wonderful they are.
